Last Sunday evening and Monday morning were 12 hours I'd like to forget! It was a challenging time keeping Ryan contained and safe. I'm surprised I didn't have a mini-nervous break-down considering the toddler mischief he'd gotten into.
Let's start with Sunday evening. Michael left after dinner to take his friend who was here for the weekend back to his hotel. Immediately after he left, he called to tell us to go out the front door and look at the rainbow. I LOVE rainbows (who doesn't really?) mostly because they remind me of our once-in-a-lifetime-trip to Maui in 2010. It was raining a little and almost bath time, so I told the kids they could go out in it. They played tag and had a great time. Ryan has been doing great getting around outside. He's figured out how to turn around and get down stairs and he's a fairly sturdy/cautious kid so I've been able to give him a little more independence when we are outside of the house. This time, however, he missed his footing and took a little tumble on the front walkway giving himself a nice, little scrape on his cheek. I calmed him down, we took some pictures and Daddy drove up to enjoy it with us for a few more minutes. We got the kids inside and into the shower and Ryan asked to play with the phone (while I wrangled him into a diaper and pjs). We've been pretty lax about him playing with the phones - he just likes to push the buttons and nothing has ever come of it....until we got a knock on our front door. A police officer peered through the side window and said, "Allen PD we received an emergency 9-1-1 call." I didn't put two and two together yet, and opened the door and listened as he said he was following thru on the phone call. Luke was excited asking all kinds of questions, Hannah was still in her towel and carrying Ryan to me. Michael was in the garage - pretty much the most chaotic time of our evening. I told the officer it must have been my baby who called. Michael came to the door and we checked the redial option on the phone to confirm. We apologized profusely and felt so bad! We were amazed at how quickly he responded. Strange to feel bad for taking his time, but good to feel protected!
On Monday, after dropping off Hannah for her first day of school, we met two friends for coffee. My boys had not eaten breakfast yet, so I fed them there and soon the kids were ready to play. We headed to "the maze" to let them run around. Towards the end of our play date, I let Ryan explore more freely than I should have. He had climbed up to the caboose and I went back to talk to my friends in the shaded area. I had my eyes on the staircases, thinking I had full view of the area. Suddenly, I heard a group of shrieks and you know when you hear pain in the voices, that something really awful has happened. I looked to my left and saw my baby tumble down the stairs. He flipped side over side, his shoulder breaking his fall and he landed on his bottom. I ran and swooped him up and carried him away from everyone to soothe him. I could see that a group of women were shaking their heads in disapproval; I felt the "mommy scorn" coming from them. Immediately, I could see that Ryan was okay. After a few minutes he stopped crying and my friend came over and I could tell she was upset. This group of ladies had said comments such as, "this little baby was all alone"...."where was his mom?"..."she should have been watching him..." All very true, but as moms you just don't say things like this about other moms. You absolutely think it, but you don't speak it. It's like a breach of contract - aren't we all supposed to support each other and look out for each other, even strangers, in this journey? More over than that, there was no expression of concern for Ryan. There were no questions about how he was doing and if he was okay? My friend had my back. She pointed this out to the women and let them know they were in the wrong. I wasn't sure what to do, I was honored that she stood up to them, but felt like I needed to work this out. So after Ryan stopped crying, I went over and asked the lady if she saw the fall...I guess she thought I was trying to ask her how it happened. She answered me then I followed up saying, "I heard you were questioning where I was...would you like to talk to me about that?" Omigoodness...this woman went into ultra-defensive mode. She went off saying things like, "I was just sitting here having to be responsible for your baby..." I told her, "No...I take full responsibility. It was my mistake, but he is hurt and it's not the right time to judge my parenting skills." So we went back and forth for a bit and my friend came to my defense again. It was obvious this "conversation" was going nowhere. Another mom came up to us and said, "there are children here" (implying that we needed to shut it down). She was right, it was not the right place to argue in front of the kiddos. But let's get real....these 1-4 year olds had no idea what was going on, they were busy playing. Luke was clueless when I asked him about it. Our other friend said she had never seen anything like this before. Later, I broke down telling my friend that I knew it was a risk to leave him alone, but I wanted to have some social time. I have to remember that I am just at a different stage and this is how it has to be right now. :( Anyway, we left the park and needless to say I was quite shaken up. Lots of mommy guilt, frustration and confusion as to why the lady didn't look for me or try to protect him from falling if she saw the whole thing play out. Still makes me sick to think about it, but we have to learn from our mistakes and move forward. And this isn't the first, nor will it be the last time that one of my children gets hurt on my watch. I know I could have handled the situation in a different/better way. My only conclusion is that I should have just left the scene of the crime and focused on Ryan. Still...this one is going to bother me for a while. :-(
No comments:
Post a Comment